The MLS Experiment: April 2010

Hello friends and welcome to my latest update as the MLS regular season kicks off. Before all that many thanks to all who contributed comments to the initial post which probably left most of us still confused with rosters, waivers and those dreaded international players which seemed to attract the most attention and responses. All good banter though.

We left off last time with the pre-season games over and done with and from there I set up training schedules based on individual player positions. Many thanks to someone who created a schedule called N89, which I found on FM Scout. I’m too lazy to figure out my own.

A question was asked about the quality of the teams and I’m open to correction but I think LA Galaxy are an up and coming and New England should be a team to watch out for based on previous history.

Back to the dreaded Roster Finalization or in other words squad registration. Having figured out who was an international, American and Canadian (being sarcastic) I still had one American too many so had to release on waivers Dan Gargan who actually looks pretty decent and as you can see was picked up by Kansas City.

With some wiggle room in the squad I went for three Canadians two of which I registered and the other I totally forgot about and was automatically waived as the “game date” moved on. Here are the two I did sign up. Both will be considered back up players.

My squad is listed as 24 players so I’m going to see if I can pick up a couple of Americans who haven’t played at international level so perhaps they will be considered as domestic players?

After the opening game of the season in Columbus I did sign one American who was uncapped so I wanted to see if he would be considered as an “international” and sure enough Josh Lopuski was. Too bad really as he was a decent looking player so I guess he will end up being waived.

The opening month went horrendously as we were unable to win a single game. We were totally outplayed in New England and Colorado and we managed to snatch a draw in our home opener with Philadelphia.  A fluky goal in the dying seconds of the game with Seattle capped of a well and truly miserable month.

It was bad enough that my defensive unit seemed uncoordinated but the front men performed like they have never played before with most of their shots suited to American Football rather than soccer. If there were points awarded for over the bar in this game we would be league leaders. Just see for yourself by these ratings. Nasty eh?

Recent arrival O’Brian White has the only goal out of all of them. His profile seen below says he’s Jamaican but is not considered an international as like myself he’s Canadian as well.

League Standings

No surprise then we are at the bottom of our Conference but apparently are not the worst team in the MLS…just yet.

We open up next month away to current champions Salt Lake City and take on Vancouver (who in real life are now in the MLS) in the Canadian Championship that also incudes Montreal in a round robin  tournament. What you get for winning that I have no idea other that bragging rights I guess.

Finally, a look at the teams morale which is in the toilet right now but that’s not totally unexpected as we’ve yet to record a win this season. I definitely hope that things have improved bythe time Vancouver visits us.

Thanks for reading and hope you are having a fantastic day!!